Watching vids in a con setting

Sep 05, 2010 22:47

To prove that I learnt something at Vividcon, I am finally getting round to posting my notes on watching vids on a large screen with an audience for the first time. While hopefully more widely interesting than my tl;dr social rambles about the con ( part 1 and part 2), these notes are still highly subjective. I am sure other people's relationship ( Read more... )

vividcon, vidding

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bop_radar September 5 2010, 23:57:14 UTC
so much of that is the enjoyment we get as people by seeing others enjoying something
Oh yes! I was completely amazed at how swept up in that I got. I had always imagined myself sitting in a Vividcon audience feeling completely out of synch with people around me and all headtilty and confused about it (because that had been my exerience at home), but in person I really got swept up in the moment. There was just so much joy, vicarious and otherwise. I think I loved seeing other people excited about vids in person more than I loved being excited about them myself!

Does that same experience translate when watching it alone at home? Almost never.
Right! I feel relieved about this because it no longer means I'm a failed viewer (how I used to feel in LJ-centric vidding fandom after every VVC when I failed to adore the most recced vids of the con).

The balance is totally important too. I agree. My next post is going to be about specific vids that I got way more out of in a con setting than I would have at home (I believe). And it's a mix of upbeat joy and serious critique.

I think the other thing I took away from the con was how skilled it is to be able to pitch successfully to the Vividcon audience. Like publishing, it's not a science and there's always going to be factors outside your control that will determine how the vid is received, but it was also quite clear that some vidders (yourself included) do it more skillfully than others. That was cool to see!

On the other hand I really deeply appreciated wistful_fever's comment that the con audience could also be viewed as an opportunity to make people watch something they might not otherwise watch and challenge them a bit. While a vid that pushes those viewer boundaries may not always be a smash-hit, I suspect they linger in the collective memory and do the community good overall--I've also seen such vids gather great word-of-mouth online.

I just got so much out of the con I'm going to be babbling for months.

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jarrow September 6 2010, 01:25:51 UTC
I just got so much out of the con I'm going to be babbling for months.

There is no bad there :-D

I think the other thing I took away from the con was how skilled it is to be able to pitch successfully to the Vividcon audience.

Right - some people do put a lot of thought into what they submit to a particular vidshow and why and what the blurb is and what to put in the vid because of all that. Sometimes you want something really accessible (like my premiere this year), sometimes you want something they might not've seen otherwise, sometimes it's what you want to see on the big screen for the sake of, or sometimes it's just whatever you've finished around deadline time that seems as good a choice to submit as any. And every year there are surprise hits and ones that we are surprised to hear weren't hits. You just never know. It's not a science, you're right, but there are certainly enough patterns in it that we can talk about it like this. Yay for that!

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bop_radar September 6 2010, 02:21:42 UTC
Yay indeed! \o/ I like patterns, they help me work stuff out. :) I'm very interested in understanding audiences because I find knowing what audience I'm vidding for helps a lot in managing anxiety about feedback and posting. Often my intended audiences are very small--as long as I know (and remember!) that, it's not upsetting to not get a lot of fb. Conversely, if I'm deliberately, consciously making something more widely accessible, I do expect more views.

I so see how people get addicted to vidding for the Vividcon audience though--that energy is so unique!

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